Pasture improvement is said to be the technology which has most influenced Australia's post-war agricultural production but little is known of the factors which have influenced the pasture adoption process. This paper describes an exploratory analysis of the determinants of pasture improvement adoption on the central and southern tablelands of New South Wales, one of Australia's foremost grazing areas. The objectives were to quantify the separate influences on pasture improvement adoption and to determine whether there has been change in the response to these influences over time. The results indicate that most of the variation in improved pasture levels since 1950 was explained by movements in farm prices and input costs. Other periodic influences were evident as were important geographic and temporal differences.